Writing Japanese

Good glory...  what have I been doing recently?  There is so little to write about...

Today was the first day of the school season (school started on August 17) that I walked to school.  It has been much too hot to walk 15 minutes to school, stand at a sunny crosswalk for 30 minutes and then walk back home (uphill!) between 7:00 and 8:00 in the morning and that is why I've been doing my walking at 5:00AM and using the car to get to and from school.  This weekend there is a typhoon approaching Japan and so it was too rainy early this morning though the rain has temporarily had a cooling effect so I chose to walk at 7:00 dressed in my sweat-suit of rain gear.

I come home and one of my first jobs of the weekday is to write in the Traffic Safety log that I am required to turn in to the city hall every month.  This small chore is my daily Japanese language challenge and it is by barely being able to write Japanese that I have been able to continue as a crosswalk guard for 10 years now.  All the other employed crosswalk guards are sent the printed forms and they handwrite their daily comments but that stumped me the first month on the job and threatened to end my career as a crosswalk guard.  I was given permission to type my comments into the form (Tetsu copied the original form into my computer) and I can hunt and peck the Japanese and at the end of the month print it all out.  I'm pretty sure that the daily log gives the city hall people a lot of laughs because of my incorrect Japanese but they make allowances and I do my best.

I did study Japanese when I was in college but even when I arrived in Japan after 4 years of study I barely spoke Japanese.  When Tetsu and I got married people shook their heads because my Japanese was still so poor and he didn't speak English...  What were we ever going to do?!  In the early days of marriage I would spend the morning poring over recipes books with a dictionary, spending all afternoon shopping and then cooking.  By the time Takumi and Leiya arrived my spoken Japanese was pretty good (I think!) but I remember struggling to read the simplest children's books to the kids and wondering if I'd ever be able to smoothly read the stories.  (And it was a blow to the ego when the kids got better at reading than I was).  I guess over the years I've studied some and I've become comfortable enough with Japanese to read magazines and craft books. 

But writing?  Writing Japanese is a horrendous process!!!!  There are over 50,000 kanji (Chinese characters) in Japanese plus two easier syllabaries and the syllabaries are about as far as I got!

An example...  The bottom right character is part of the word for school...  In college I used this huge kanji dictionary and spent hours counting strokes and trying to memorize combinations.  Oh dear...  even in this example we don't get to the second half of the word for school!  That is on the next page...  10 strokes away!  Anyway, you get the idea of how hard it is to read Japanese and then to write any of it?  Ooh-la-la!  That is so beyond me!  But over 40 years I have learned to recognize some of the characters and that is why I can choose characters when I write Japanese on my computer...

(photo from the Internet)

The computer for Japanese was the greatest invention!  When I first came to Japan I worked at a Christian Center and they published a quarterly newsletter for the prefecture's churches.  I was fascinated watching one woman who was the "typist" as she maneuvered and deftly used the moveable type in order to do the printing.  It felt like I'd gone backwards in time to the era of Gutenberg type!  She'd pick out the tiny metal blocks from slats and slats filled with thousands of other metal blocks and set them in the right order for printing.  

(photo from the Internet)

And remember, all the blocks are reversed so she'd have to imagine them backwards!  I one time asked her what would happen if an earthquake upset all her slats and sent the zillions of blocks to the ground.  

"Well, we'd have to buy a new set of blocks.  It would take too long to try and set them back into the order I've remembered them."  

And I thought I was doing well with the QWERTY typewriting of English!

So I hunt and peck and write my Traffic Safety log and feel somewhat proud of myself.  At the beginning I also had asked Tetsu to read through my entries and correct any major mistakes but that ended up putting our marriage to the test (much like a husband trying to teach a wife to drive in the olden days) and now I turn in my log mistakes and all!  I'm still employed so it works!

Lots and Lots of Hugs and Kisses!

I have TWO finishes to report today!  This may be a first!

The Hugs and Kisses quilt for Leiya and Tony's baby is finished!  All that was left was to make a label and so that has been in the planning.  In the meantime I've been quilting the Hugs and Kisses in Blue for Leiya's (our) friend's baby that is due in October and once that was done I spent yesterday making two labels and sewing them both on.

This is the Hugs and Kisses quilt for our grandson due in December.  I started it before we knew that Leiya was expecting a boy and at any rate, Leiya has specifically asked for gender-neutral baby gifts.  She is very practical considering ahead to maybe future children where the same things could be used again...  The yellow lattice is fabric Leiya and I had picked out a couple of years ago that I had considered using for a border on Leiya and Tony's wedding quilt but I don't think got used. I went a bit overboard with the hand quilting and it took a lot of time and to stencil it all in before quilting.  But it is done and full of love and lots and lots of stitches!

This is the Hugs and Kisses in Blue for our friend, Y-chan.  I had heard that she was expecting before Leiya ever made her announcement and I had asked Y-chan's mother if she wanted to make a baby quilt for the expected baby.  As it turned out it didn't seem that the grandmother was going to have the time and so when Leiya made her announcement I went ahead and made the Xs and Os for both quilts.  And then Y-chan specifically asked for blue when she too found out her baby was a boy, thus the Hugs and Kisses in Blue. 

For the quilting though, I was getting tired out from all the hearts on Leiya's quilt and I felt like I might run out of time if I got too involved on this one so I went for simpler lines.

The labels are from a stencil booklet I had and after tracing the design I colored in with crayons and heat set the color.  I questioned how to sign the label for my own grandchild.  Tanya seems a bit strange but we haven't yet decided what Tetsu and I will be called once the baby arrives.  In Japanese Grandma could be Baa-baa, or Obaachan, or Baachan.  I called my own Japanese grandma Baachan.  Grandpa would be Jii-jii or Ojiichan or Jiichan.  Or I could be Grandma Tanya or Grandma Tani I suppose...  I'm not sure how we'll decide...  So I considered leaving the label blank but Tetsu said since both Takumi and Leiya have always called us, Tetsu-san and Tanya-san (honorific form) rather than Mom and Dad, to just go with Tanya for now....  

Leiya and Y-chan are now in contact with each other again, recalling the days when our families traveled to California together to visit grandparents (Y-chan's grandparents also live in California).  In those days we all spoke Japanese to each other but once in California switched to English while there and then went back to Japanese when arriving back in Japan.  These days Leiya said her written Japanese was rusty (15 years of living in America) and so now she and Y-chan are corresponding with Leiya emailing in English and Y-chan emailing in Japanese and both expectant mothers are fine with the unusual language communication.  It is so fun that the girls grew up together, did lots of things together, got married last year in the same month, and now are having baby boys within two months of each other!

Numbers

Well, we've come to the end of August.  Hopefully September will be the start of cooler, more comfortable days in so many ways!  

I took today's photos on my 5:00 AM walk yesterday morning and there were mystical pockets of fog lying low on the fields the between forests.

I found August very trying...  The heat and the short bout of heat stroke did me in.  Irritations and tempers were high maybe because of the heat, maybe because of the Corona limitations in our lives these days.  Though we stay Corona free, the pandemic gnaws at my mood...  Has anyone else stopped wearing lip-stick?  Or sometimes make-up completely?  The lip-stick got stuck in a back drawer early just because of all the mask wearing.  Gradually, it seemed ridiculous to wear any make-up at all as I rarely met anyone and when I was out in public only my eyes show anyway.  The idea of getting dressed up, even in nice jeans and something other than a t-shirt, also got put aside because I have only been cleaning and walking and both resulted in being sweaty.  So this summer I just felt old and colorless and frumpy.

I finally got fed up with the way I was glued to the iPhone and iPad, looking at the disturbing news local and from afar. 

"I'm being controlled by this iPhone!" 

For nearly 15 years I have always kept a pedometer on me and in recent years it has been the iPhone pedometer but I felt like I'd made my goal in life to get my 10000 steps in everyday come hell or high water, and with the lack of summer activity I'd spend an hour just pacing in the bedroom every night to get my steps in.  Ridiculous.  The purpose is to stay healthy not to keep my step numbers up!  I made the decision this week to uninstall the pedometer app on my phone and though I will continue to walk whenever I can I will not allow myself to be controlled by the numbers.

 

In a similar vein, I managed to opt out of the competition groups on Duolingo.  I have been studying Spanish with Duolingo for the past 4 years and I've really enjoyed it, but somewhere along the line Duolingo started a league competition to keep us motivated.  A group of random people using Duolingo were "competing" each week to keep our scores high by studying more and more lessons.  Well, I was watching the numbers again and spending over an hour a day to stay in a "league" and I found I wasn't enjoying Spanish anymore.  It was more fun when I did a lesson a day and didn't compare my scores with anyone else.  So now I've gone back to studying Spanish one lesson at a time on my own time schedule...

The other photos today are of the very small shrine in the forest not far from us.  This is where I sit and watch the sun rise...  The shrine is uninhabited and I have no idea when anyone is there.  Maybe neighbors stop and give a short prayer when they walk through the forest but there are never any cars or people when I've come by and I have been here later than 5:00 AM.

At the entrance on the other side of the field and forest, there is a tall Torii gate.

But on this day, just me and the spiders.

The other numbers I've been keeping my eye on are the Corona cases in Japan and elsewhere where my loved ones are.  Japan now has had 68000 cases, our prefecture Tochigi has had a little more than 300 cases and our city of Nikko is staying level at 13 cases. 

Sigh.  I hope to be less controlled by numbers in the month of September...

Out on the farm

I have 4 sewing projects going at one time but actually am only making progress on one of them right now.  I devoted the relatively cool mornings to getting block number 5 done of the McKenna farm quilt.

  

All the animals piled up on top of the other like Musicians of Bremen's children's story.  No instruments though...

I made a major mistake when putting this together as I took off the Heat-n-bond paper from the back of the sheep I'd just made and did a bit of extra pressing when GASP I'd forgotten to put the non-stick applique sheet under the piece and ended up bonding the sheep to the kit instructions!  So the sheep got a paper back layer stuck to it and the instructions sheet now has a big hole in it.  I guess I'm not going to make this block ever again whether I want to or not!  It's the first time I've even been so absentminded as to bond something together that wasn't supposed to be bonded...

Block 1 was the scene with the horse and scarecrow.  Block 2 was with the cat and it makes up the right side of the large scene.  Block 3 was the pigs.  Block 4 the animals around the water trough.  And this month is the stack of animals...  I think I have three more blocks to go!

A week of heat

I think I'm back again after a week-long blog break.    I don't have much to show for my time away but I guess I have a few pictures that I took on my adventures (not).

Most of my time away I stayed to myself and kept my Kindle and my Bullet Journal handy.  I searched out cool places and found a number of cool (ish) parks.  I spent an hour or so at various sheltered benches in this park which is near the main river in town.  Still it was hot so on another day I went further near the mountains as I'd remembered there was this completely shaded hiking path farther up the river.

This is the place where the ojizou-san statues like part of the hiking path and I had heard that they were all wearing masks now though I guess that was only for the newspaper.  They were maskless when I got there...

...and they weren't social distancing.

This was the magazine cover with the ojizou-san wearing masks.  Actually ojizou-san don't have ears so it was probably hard to keep the masks on.

But as expected, the path was cool!

And a bit lonely.  There weren't any people on the trail while I was there and I decided not to go too far in as there were Beware of Bears signs around.

I found a nice rock to sit on and look down over the river and the gorge.  Just listening to the water was refreshing!

I don't really have to go far to find ojizou-san.  This scenery is within walking distance from my house.  I've given up trying to walk to the crosswalk at 7:00 in the morning (and walking back at 8:00) as it is just too hot and humid and instead John and I go out about 5:00 in the morning to this nice spot (with a bench!) and watch the sun rise in the still cool morning.

Bad picture I know, because I've blown it up quite a bit, but I wanted you to note that the dog was wearing shoes... or socks... I'm not sure which.  Humans in Japan take off their shoes when coming into the house and often people will wash their dog's feet when coming back from a walk to keep the floors clean, but this dog has his own outdoor footwear!  I would NEVER be able to get footwear on or off John.  And we can't even wash his feet so we do a lot of mopping everyday!

This was taken another early morning near our house.

I got clever one day and even took my quilting with me when I went to the park.  Thanks to that day I'm more than half finished quilting this Hugs and Kisses Quilt in Blue.

But when the heat got too overwhelming I spent time in Starbucks and department stores... not exactly social distancing but not talking to anyone either.  I tried to go to the library but was told that the library was open for browsing but the chairs and desks and benches were off limits.  That was a shame as it was nice and cool inside but I think the library was trying to prevent people, like me, from camping in them just to get away from the heat.

The heat is still on full blast in Japan.  Between Covid19 and heat stroke it is a challenge to stay healthy!

Blog break

Things are rather exhausting around here lately.  I’m going to take a few days off from blogging.  No one has Corona so don’t worry about that!

At a later date!

Obon holidays

Ending the second week of August and it is hot and humid and exhausting.  We turn the air conditioner on around noon and keep it on for the rest of the day.  That only cools off the living room and dining room area so often when I go to bed I'll have to turn on the bedroom air conditioner for a couple of hours but for most of the night we sleep with the windows open and the fan blowing.

I feel for the two cats in the outdoor cat-house though they have good shade.  Also Cleo who insists on living upstairs.  He doesn't much like John though they greet each other pleasantly enough now.  Cleo and the cat-house Patora are over 15 years old and if any of us is going to get heat stroke I'm worried about them but no matter how many times I bring Cleo into the cooler living room, he chooses to go back upstairs.

The last four days of this week are Obon, probably the most important holiday in Japan.  It is the holiday when departed spirits of ancestors return to their graves and then into the homes and so it is a big family gathering long weekend.  Maybe like Thanksgiving in the States?  Younger families will travel great distances to spend the holidays in their childhood home and the trains and highways are packed.  Actually, everything is packed with all the people taking advantage of the holiday to do sight-seeing or to make memories with grandchildren who don't normally live in the family home.  Another important part of the holiday is to visit the family grave together, sometimes twice, once to clean the gravestone, arrange flowers and sweets and incense, and bring the spirits home, another time to take the spirits back to the grave and send them off with prayers. 

That is the way NORMAL Obon holidays go but this year because of the pandemic, a lot of young families are choosing not to make the trek back to their family homes.  Some prefectures are strongly recommending reduced traveling, some of the families don't want the city residing younger generation to bring any unnecessary viruses home to the older generation, and nobody wants to spend too much time on trains and airplanes!

However the custom of visiting graves hasn't really changed and so the cemeteries are very busy places.  As John and I daily walk around the cemetery (it is cool and close and there are no cars to worry about) I noticed the cheery atmosphere the past couple of Obon days.

 

This is part of the "apartment" size section at the cemetery.  The graves are much smaller and closer together.  My neighbor just recently passed away and her son and daughter decided to purchase the smallish plot which is less costly but also very well kept up.  The lady's husband bicycles over now every morning to light incense for his wife.

I found some "interesting" things on my visit yesterday.  A cucumber horse and an eggplant cow!  These have something to do with the Obon custom of welcoming the spirits home.  Something about riding a swift horse to visit and spending leisurely time with the family (the plodding cow).  I'm not sure about this custom so don't hold me to it.

This must have something to do with the same custom.  I found these straw figures on another grave along with a paper lantern.  I think the purple one must be the cow and the green one must be the horse...

 

This doesn't necessarily have anything to do with Obon though the family may have wanted to get the grave built in time for Obon.  It is a brand new grave that I'd never seen before.  Isn't it cute!  Paw prints leading to the altar and a paw print incense burner!  I love it!  No flowers there yet but maybe the family will be coming today.

The Obon spirits are visiting when the Nikko skies are just beautiful.  We've had storm after storm including wind and rain and some of the huge cedar trees along the cedar grove have blown down.  The storms last an hour or so and then the skies clear up into beauty.

This is looking back at our white house there between the trees.